


roots to come back

by thefangirlofhp



Series: the ash in our clothes [4]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Military, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, One Shot, Snippets of Levi's life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:08:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24074935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefangirlofhp/pseuds/thefangirlofhp
Summary: “I don’t know, Farlan,” Levi says quietly, to only him, for the first time in his life what he’s always thought of. “I never have known. I don’t know what I’m living for. I’m not living for myself, that’s for one. I don’t know why I bother fighting, clawing my way through everything that’s happened to me, or why I make myself stronger because of it. I just know it’s first nature for me now and there’s nothing else for me.”
Relationships: Furlan Church & Levi & Isabel Magnolia, Hange Zoë & Levi, Hange Zoë/Levi
Series: the ash in our clothes [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1707631
Kudos: 15





	roots to come back

Small moments that stuck in his head;

**i.**

He’s a little boy sat at the worn down chair in the old kitchen, swinging his legs back and forth as his mother prepares him a meal. She is singing under her breath; humming something stored in her head from an old memory of more glorious days, and her dark onyx locks seem to absorb the light coming in through the small square window. However, the smile she gives him when she sets tuna down before him radiates everything her hair steals. He responds with a chirping ‘Thanks’ and digs in.

Later that day he starts sweating, throwing up the contents of his stomach; the sickest he’s ever been. Kuchel deduces it must be the food he ate, and lets him sleep with her in her bed- she only does that when he’s sick.

He falls asleep after throwing up to her comforting warmth as she hugs him to her chest and strokes his hair, her humming in his ear, her cool touch a mercy and her arms all the comfort he needs to become better.

**ii.**

It’s the first touch of kindness that he brushes shoulders with since she died. He waits in the car seat while the stranger –he’s not a stranger anymore, he gave him his name, didn’t he?- Kenny is in the popular food chain restaurant buying some food.

Levi sits shivering, rubbing scratched palms over his arms and feels like if he’s ever come close to a breaking point, then this is it. He’s too tired and exhausted. On the streets he’d been nothing more than a flickering shadow in the dark and hunger long since is a frequent companion. He sat by her gravestone, his head resting against the cool of the stone and wishes it were her cool fingers on his forehead to bring him rest. Instead, it’s a stranger’s voice interrupting the murky thick silence around him.

“Here kid,” the car door opens briefly and Kenny slips into the driver’s seat, bringing with him a warm smell of fulfilling food. Kenny drops the plastic bag in his seat and Levi jumps at the heat coming from the meal –he was expecting cold throwaway leftovers- but there’s no more questions in his head when he pulls out a burger and takes a bite.

He soon wolfs it down in an alarming and non-dignified way, and it’s a good thing the burger is a small to allow him a small break.

Kenny watches him with an odd look on his face as Levi wolfs down another burger, then gulps down cold water eagerly. He doesn’t comment at Levi’s behavior, instead he starts the car and drives.

After Levi consumes three burgers and two water bottles, his stomach feels ready to burst and it’s likely he’s going to be sick. He wraps his arms around his stomach and huddles in the seat, watching Kenny with hawk-like eyes and worry cooks in him at the thought of what the man might want in return. Levi can’t stand going through _that_ again, he’d sooner run away and starve again (it was easy to think that with a satisfied stomach).

“What do you want?” Levi mumbles hoarsely. Kenny gives him that odd look again and looks back to the street without a word.

“Finish your food, kid.”

That night in the strange house, Levi is scared he’ll go through that again and is more than on his guard but Kenny dumps himself onto the old dreary sofa before the box television and closes his eyes.

“Where-Where do I…?” Levi asks quietly and if it weren’t for the silent house Kenny would never have heard him.

“Anywhere, little runt,” answers Kenny without opening his eyes. “Whatever floats your boat; it’s the same shit everywhere.”

Levi decides to stay on the ground floor and avoid the stairs, and he huddles on the ground in a corner. He sleeps for a couple of minutes before he switches places and tries again. He ends up on the same sofa as Kenny, sleeping figuratively with one eye open.

All the sudden food he’s eaten gets to him and he spends the rest of the night in the bathroom, throwing up and struggling to do so with an upset stomach, until he falls asleep in the bathroom’s doorway. He wakes up on the couch, a folded pillow under his head and a heavy coat over him. At the other end of the couch, Kenny is watching the television with absent eyes and a cigarette burning in his lips, without his coat. He glances at Levi, meets his eyes, and in that moment where Kenny’s face holds an odd look and Levi’s heart is hammering furiously out of fear in his chest, Levi wants to ask _why_ but is scared to. Kenny rolls his gaze away with a grunt.

**iii.**

Farlan is sitting quietly with him, both of them full of chocolate birthday cake. Levi is positively more than miserable and bitter, but he keeps the scathing feeling in his lungs to hack away through him. He kicks up his legs on the coffee table and digs his nose into the collar of his woolen sweater.

“It can’t just be this,” his friend whispers quietly, his voice broken and helpless. “All that’s in store for us.”

Levi rolls his gaze to Farlan, blinks in thought and looks away. “You should turn in for the night.”

“We’re doing tomorrow’s job, then?”

Levi sighs and tightens the fold of his arms. “I’ll finalize it tomorrow. I need to know the shit’s serious about this.”

“He’s already put Dinan in a hospital. A good one, too.”

“Just because he’s serious about taking a hostage doesn’t mean he’s serious about our part. For all I know he’s setting the Military Police onto us.”

“Don’t you get tired of it? Ever? All this?”

Levi tilts a slowly pounding head. “Tired of living, you mean?”

“This can’t- it can’t just be this,” repeats Farlan helplessly, kicking the leg of the coffee table and looks like he’s swallowed something bitter. “Can it? I mean… What am I living for then?”

“I don’t know, Farlan,” Levi says quietly, to only him, for the first time in his life what he’s always thought of. “I never have known. I don’t know what I’m living for. I’m not living for myself, that’s for one. I don’t know why I bother fighting, clawing my way through everything that’s happened to me, or why I make myself stronger because of it. I just know it’s first nature for me now and there’s nothing else for me.”

**iv.**

He sets his sights on her for the first time in his life with Mike whilst being given a tour of the grounds. Levi doesn’t comment on the fact that they’re so sure of his cooperation because there’s a life at stake that depends on it and they’re so confident in that regards. Levi’s been shown mostly everything now, and it’s the R&D department’s turn.

Mike shows him around the labs, giving surface comments. Levi doesn’t need anything to do with the labs as a soldier, and neither does Mike so it’s just landscaping. When a researching scout is seen running to the stairs, laden with documents and safety equipment, Mike grins and calls out to him.

“Hey Moblit,” Mike gestures for Levi towards the scout to follow him as he steps up to the hassled scout. “Where are you headed? What’s all this?”

The frazzled scout replies hurriedly; “Hange forgot to bring her safety equipment and she’s going on with her experiment.”

“Sounds like her,” says Mike. “We’ll come with you. This is Levi, he’s just joined.”

Moblit can’t seem to care less about Levi or Mike, seeing as he dashes down the flight of stairs without another word and with a glance thrown Levi’s way, Mike follows suit.

It seems a popular and anticipated test because there are a lot of scouts gathered behind a red line painted on the floor. Moblit runs well past that line, calling out.

Mike keeps behind a yellow line, behind the masses and glass panels. “You can’t be too careful with these people,” he says to Levi. “Here, look, that’s Hange.” He points to a figure standing before a prototype of sorts, carrying a remote and wearing thick goggles. Levi takes a better look at her; dark hair bunched into an excuse of a ponytail, eyes obscured by goggles, hooked nose, tall figure and sure posture.

The prototype erupts in an explosion, several people shriek, and out of the settling fire Levi stands corrected; it didn’t explode, the prototype remains intact and safe without even scorch marks. Hange who is standing close to it, jumps in the air and punches a fist in it, she too shouting- but out of ecstasy and not fear. She grabs a ranting Moblit and gruffly hugs him.

That explosion should have blasted the prototype well into high heavens, and even got Hange.

“What do you think?” Mike asks.

Levi observes the woman, blinking slowly as he takes in the shock. “I’m glad she’s not my enemy.”

**v.**

The night is stifling quiet and cold but there is warmth that the cold can’t touch. Hange’s curled up in his arms, both of them smelling of well-made stew that’s scent resides in the kitchen and Levi’s clothes. She snores softly, her hands in his own, her fingers tickling in his palms. Levi can swear her lips are moving coherently, her fingers writing and typing, and if he is concerned he might focus and figure out what she’s saying but it’s the last thing on his mind. She mumbles under her breath, and shifts her head on his shoulder. The house is cold, so he shifts her to lie against the couch and he slips out of his shirt then returns her to her rightful previous state.

Hange mumbles again, snoring softly. In the quietness disturbed by her breathing, there’s the faint gentle whisper of feathers and wings unfolding. Levi secures his arms around her, keeping her close to the warmth emitted by his skin and his wings fold around them both to keep the cold out.

He holds her while she sleeps, his arms securing her to him, and his eyes droop shut slowly while his wings encase them in a hug to secure the warmth in. He falls asleep to that.

**vi.**

She’s on her chemicals, taking her prescribed dose for the day as she reclines in her bed and bobs her head mindlessly while she reads papers and reports. Levi is curled like a cat on a chair by the window, nose buried deep in a book propped open against his knees with an ear out to the classical music playing- Bless Tchaikovsky and all his compositions that are something Levi lives for in his now aimless life. Life after an end to the conflict with Marley is an alien thing they are carefully exploring; hesitant fingers prodding an unknown package. 

He is tapping his fingers in sync with the playing march, slightly bobbing his head back and forth as he works his lower lip and reads. Hange lets out a sigh of frustration, looks up from her papers and with a temper, tosses them across the room in a flourishing hand movement, watching them flutter down.

He looks up from his book, glances at the strewn papers and meets her gaze as he sits bathed in the sunlight. She looks expectantly at him, wide eyes blinking not-so-innocently.

“I’m not picking them up for you.”

“Aw, Levi. Come on-“

“No, just because you have tit cancer doesn’t mean that I’m going to cater like a servant for you. You clean up your own damn mess.”

“Levi,” she near-whines and he turns his attention back to his book. A few moments later he hears her slide off the bed and begins picking up her papers. Levi meets her gaze when she takes the seat next to his in the sunlight and she offers him a smile.

He doesn’t know why, but it finds its permanent place in his head. That smile. That moment. That tranquil peace.


End file.
